Summary

Whilst Arnold Rimmer impatiently waits for Kryten to take him "asteroid spotting" in Starbug, Lister continues to try help Kryten break his programming to lie and insult. Lister tries to teach Kryten how to lie by showing him things and asking him to identify them wrong, such as calling a banana a "small, off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic warden", a banana "a female Aardvark", and an apple as "the Bolivian Navy on maneuvers in the South Pacific." He is however unable to keep this up in front of Cat. Kryten then goes asteroid spotting with Rimmer and uses his lessons on insults and lying against him, but is unable to say "smeg head", instead managing only "smeee heeee".

They stumble upon a distress signal emanating from a moon that is about to explode, and although a scared Rimmer demands that he turn around, Kryten goes in and finds a female mechanoid survivor named Camille. The two get along extremely well, having similar personalities and it appears romance may be in the air for Kryten. Camille hesitates when she hears Kryten is part of a crew to the point she is willing to remain on the doomed planet, but he assures her she'll like them... well, maybe one of them at least.

Kryten returns with Camille to Starbug, but when Rimmer sees her he sees not a mechanoid but rather a beautiful female hologram. Like with Kryten, Camille's personality is perfectly suited to Rimmer (she claims to have also been a Second Technician who wanted to go further but kept failing exams) and they get along famously, and the two become quite taken with each other. In the cockpit, Kryten and Rimmer discuss the possibility of there being romance in the air with both believing they're talking about themselves, although Kryten is alarmed when Rimmer notes that Camille reminds him of his sister-in-law.

Arriving back on Red Dwarf, Lister goes to check on Camille only to see her as a flirty Liverpudlian with a similar fashion sense and personality. Lister begins to flirt, telling her its their responsibility as the last two humans in the universe to repopulate the race and offers to change into his Spider-Man costume. Rimmer then arrives and invites Camille to look through his collection of pictures of 20th-century telegraph poles. When Lister pours scorn on such an utterly boring idea, Rimmer insists that Camille shares his love of both telegraph poles and Reggie Wilson. Lister is perplexed when he hears Camille insult these, yet Rimmer responds as if she's agreeing. He asks her what's going on and she admits, to Lister's disappointment, that she's a Pleasure GELF.

Lister tells Cat later that GELFs are Genetically Engineered Life Forms, with Pleasure GELFs designed to appear as a person's perfect match, hence why everyone views her differently. Cat is very excited at the idea of meeting his perfect mate who would fall instantly in love with him, and proceeds to meet Camille. Entering the Science Room, Cat is stopped in his tracks at the sight of Camille... looking exactly like him. It turns out Cat's vanity is so extreme the person most perfect for him is himself. Nevertheless, Cat is overjoyed and leaves with a huge grin on his face eager for a brandy.

The crew discuss their disappointment that their perfect partners were nothing more than a GELF in disguise, although Lister is sympathetic to Camille knowing she can't help how she looks to them. Camille then apologizes for the crew for the unintentional deception, and reveals her true form... an amorphous green blob with an eye-stalk. She feels the most guilty for hurting Kryten however - blind to notions of beauty - he still wants to date her. They go dancing to the Parrots Bar, go for a a romantic spin in Starbug, and watch Casablanca at the cinema, and begin falling in love.

With Lister's training, Kryten is able to let Camille and Hector go...

That is, until her blob husband Hector finds her, who is looking for an antidote to their condition. Kryten convinces a reluctant Camille to leave with Hector, since it is her best shot at happiness, using dialogue from Lister's favorite film Casablanca; instead of saying "we'll always have Paris", he says "we'll always have Parrots".

As the blobs leave, Lister tells Kryten that he was lying to make sure Camille left. Kryten confirms this, saying he knew it was her best shot at being happy. He then confirms that he's blaming all of this on Lister, and calls him a "complete and total smeg head". Lister is happy to have been insulted, and the two walk as he remarks that this will be start of "a beautiful friendship".

Deleted Scenes

Available on the Series IV DVD:

Extended dialogue to various scenes; these include Rimmer's happiness at asteroid-spotting, Lister talking about lost love Kochanski, and the "hammy hamster" discussion.

A new scene of Kryten and blob-Camille slow-dancing in the Parrots Bar.

Notes

Kryten lying, and Lister helping him to do it, is a follow on from the last episode where Kryten lied for the first time and in so doing defeated Hudzen-10.

When Rimmer calls the ship to report Kryten leaving to search for survivors, Lister urges Rimmer to go with him as Kryten might need help. As well, when Kryten falls off a gantry, he calls for Rimmer to help him just before he's saved by Camille. Both of these instances seem to forget that, his abject cowardice aside, Rimmer's an insubstantial hologram at this point in the show's history. He couldn't interact with a solid object if he wanted to.

Suzanne Rhatigan, who played Lister's Camille, was Craig Charles' real-life girlfriend at the time. She went on to become a noted singer-songwriter (some of her early recordings were actually co-written by Charles). It was originally planned for Lister's Camille to be Kristine Kochanski, but it was decided that the sudden and inexplicable reappearance of Lister's dead ex-girlfriend would tip him off too soon that something wasn't right. It was then decided that Lister's Camille would instead become a Lister-like character (essentially a Caucasian version of Deb Lister). Former Coronation Street actress Tracey Brabin shot some scenes as the Kochanski Camille, but these were eventually removed by the writers as they didn't think them strong enough. Rhatigan was brought in at last-minute. Despite the change in character, Rhatigan is still credited as "Kochanski Camille" in the closing credits.

Camille's hologram form is seen wearing a red version of Rimmer's outfit, a design which would be carried forward into Series V and worn by Rimmer himself.

Francesca Folan went on to co-star in the The House of Elliott, which aired later in 1991, and was also a recurring guest star on Jeeves and Wooster.

Background Information

The previous three series had been shot at BBC Manchester, but for series IV with the show becoming more of a hit filming moved to Shepperton Studios (the "Hollywood of the UK" where James Bond films are often shot) and so were able more lavish sets and higher production values. Mel Bibby added a long corridor which could be shuffled around and re-lighted easily to appear as different corridors and give the ship a sense of scale. The cast also found this better since they were able to rehearse where shooting would take place for the first time.

This episode was originally scheduled to air second in the run of Series IV, however it was moved up following the postponement of "Meltdown" as it was felt to be an appropriate one to air on Valentine's Day.

Noteworthy Dialogue

Kryten:Smee... Hee...

Kryten:Camille looks like your sister-in-law? What happened, was she involved in some kind of horrific car accident!?Rimmer:Who, Janine? No!, of course not. She was a model!Kryten:And she looked like Camille?Rimmer:Absolutely! The resemblance is uncanny.Kryten:What did she model: spark plugs?